New Beginnings, Radical Possibilities Kashmir Lit (KL): What invoked you to adopt this anthem for Kashmir? Please tell us its significance? Zanaan Wanaan (ZW): As the Indian state stripped Kashmir of its partial autonomy on the 5th August by abrogating Article 370 and imposed an arbitrary communications ban, those … Read more →
Asiya Andrabi: A Lifetime of Fighting for Freedom
Rahiba R Parveen From the archives [ First published here in 2014] – Asiya Andrabi is currently jailed You may agree or disagree with her ideology but the founder of the first women’s organization of Kashmir, Dukhtaran-e-Millat (Daughter of the nation) Asiya Andrabi remains one of the most important women … Read more →
A Kashmiri Woman’s Lifetime Struggle for Azadi
Conversation with Anjum Zamarud Habib Faizaan Bhat Anjum Zamarud Habib is a social and political activist, senior executive member of Hurriyat [Geelani] and author of two books, including Nigha-E-Anjum, her autobiography, published by Kitaab Mehal and Qaidi number 100 published by Pharos Books, which is a journal of her days … Read more →
Two Poems by Insha Muzaffar
(1) In the mirror the hangman looks so like my silence that I wish I was born as a million tongued word meaning freedom there are no flowers like that of moon (eclipsing over old mountains) no resurrection other than its absurd cycles but then the way some people longingly … Read more →
Eid ul Fitr in Kashmir by Aaliya Mushtaq
The sacrificial Eid is yet months away Yet Ishmael is dangled on the cross The angels keep their censored silences and pour them into our hearts. It isn’t even Muharram But sisters wrap mourning over their torn cloaks, and wipe off sweat from the cold bullets settled in the brows … Read more →
To a half disappearance & If wishes were horses by Zabirah Fazili
Back home we laughed merry laughs, tears streaming down our eyes, a defiant smile on the face offsets familiar aches felt by us. we lost him in our strength and frailty yet we hugged and held each other back home to shelve our shrieks we smiled at our helplessness. we … Read more →
A view of the Women’s War in Kashmir
By Shazia Yousuf The soldiers had just left and my grandmother’s house looked battered and bruised. Cupboards and chests lay open like fresh wounds, bleeding secrets of the family that were neatly kept between books and folded clothes. It was a crackdown, a routine search operation that Indian soldiers carried out … Read more →
This Is How Kashmiri Women Are Risking Their Lives
April 6, 2017, 4:30 PM ET Republished transcript of an Interview with Arooja (name changed) a Kashmiri woman on NPR’s All Things Considered JULIE MCCARTHY Some residents of the Indian-administered Kashmir Valley are using more aggressive tactics to thwart Indian security forces: Women are placing themselves, literally, between militants and soldiers. KELLY … Read more →
Stories of Kashmir’s Women
Kashmiri writer-journalist Majid Maqbool spoke to Freny Manecksha about her new book that focuses on the women of the valley and their struggles with life in a place that is constantly at war Freny Manecksha first visited Kashmir in October 2010 and kept returning to the valley every year since. … Read more →
Enforced Disappearance of a young Kashmiri woman
Raqib Hameed Naik Doda (Jammu and Kashmir): Inside the dilapidated single story mud house with wood and polyethene sheets covering the roof, Ghulam Mohammad Butt, 88 opens his steel trunk and brings out an old, torn newspaper. Flipping all the pages, he stops at the last and keeps gazing at the … Read more →
Behold, I Shine: Narratives of Kashmir’s Women and Children
Freny Manecksha Book Excerpt: Chapter “I Can Save Myself: Dissent and Feminism in a New Millenium” The challenging male diktats on morality is extended to conversations around religion. In a lengthy conversation, Essar remarked how men simply assume they are the thekedars of what is right or wrong and she was … Read more →
Kashmiri War Mothers Find Ways to Grieve
By Shazia Yousuf When I met Taja Begum in the winter of 2009, I could tell she was dying soon. Taja, 75, was skin and bones. Every time she spoke, her trembling hands went up to soothe her tired chest. She took little sips of hot water in between long … Read more →
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